Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for removing a marginal zone external of an outline cut in a glass sheet, in which method a glass sheet is carried by means of a suction-padded conveyor carriage to a marginal zone removing station, wherein the marginal zone to be removed is subjected to the action of a heating flame by means of a flame burner.
The invention relates also to an apparatus for carrying out the method. The apparatus includes a conveyor carriage fitted with ascendable and descendable suction pads and a marginal zone removing station fitted with flame burners for applying a heating flame to the marginal zone to be removed.
The currently available solutions include a flame-effected removal on the one hand and a mechanical removal on the other. In the flame-effected removal procedure, a marginal zone to be removed is first subjected to a heating flame and the corners are then cut open by sharp cutting flames. A drawback in flame-effected removal is a wide marginal zone required thereby, resulting in a large loss of glass. Another drawback is that automatization of a plurality of flame stations is complicated in mixed production. In mechanical removal, the opening of corners is effected by means of a cutting knife and it further requires the use of presses for forcing the marginal zone loose. First of all, a drawback is that two separate removing stations are required and, furthermore, this removing method is also difficult to automatize in mixed production.
An object of the invention is to provide a method and an apparatus applicable to the removal of a marginal zone in a glass sheet, which make it possible to remove a very narrow marginal zone (5-10 mm) and whose operation can be automated in a simple fashion.
This object is achieved by means of the invention on the basis of the method features set forth in the annexed claim 1 and the apparatus features set forth in claim 2.